Monday, 17 November 2014

I am now home from Maui, what an amazing place! And an unexpected trip there too as we only booked a few weeks before in Sylt once the PWA event had been confirmed. I didn't think I would be going back there for a long time, as we had been planning on going to Chile to finish the year, but this will have to wait until I have saved more pennies! Maui as always was incredible and I was so happy to meet all the AWT girls and locals who I hadn't met before. Living in a house of 6 girls (plus lucky-or unlucky?! Stef) was really fun and there were a few celebratory parties-one for Thomas Travesa who won the World title this year and also for the closing ceremony for the PWA and AWT.

Here are a couple more pictures from the Aloha Classic from John Carter, such a blue face to carve up on that wave!

So I am pretty happy to say I am 7th in the World this year! My goal was to be top ten, so I am happy I have achieved this. I didn't get my best result in Maui, but I think from competition you have always gained something, no matter where you come you learn about things you can improve. For Maui, I need a lot more time on cross-off starboard tack, I haven't spent very long riding there at all. I have learnt where I need to improve my riding skills, mostly in my top turn and aerials and also that it is most important to just have fun on the water-which I did! It's also a good lesson to learn that competition sailing (especially for me) is so different to my normal style of go for more, normally crash more. The first heats at Ho'okipa were on a bigger day so it forced me to be more controlled and safer in my riding, to the detriment of my style a little. I need to spend a fair amount of time making my normal style more consistent so that I know I can make it 95% of the time and then I will start to do better!

I would love to keep competing and I think with more training, I could do better again next year, but I go back to full time work in January and also I am lucky enough to be getting married next June! So I am not sure how many PWA competitions I can do next year...we will see! For now though, I am going to focus on windsurfing and surfing as much as I can in Cornwall until Christmas, keep training in Crossfit, swimming and breath holds, and see where this gets me! I would love to do some more big wave surfing and windsurfing, so we will see what the UK Winter brings!

Here are some other pictures we took, from a snorkel boat trip:

From the road to Hana and round the back of the volcano:

From Kanaha, windsurfing on my new favorite board, my custom 63l! These are from the GoPro with the K4 harness mount:

At the PWA closing ceremony we were lucky enough to see the premiere of the RedBull Storm Chase movie. It was amazing! So inspiring and absolutely crazy too! It reinforced my love of the UK and cold water windsurfing too, as Steffi Wahl said-my heart beats for Europe! I am hoping for some good conditions this Winter, I hope Cornwall delivers!

Tuesday, 4 November 2014

I have been here in Maui for about two weeks now, and we have had pretty amazing conditions for the last stop of the World Tour! I had about a week before the event to practise at Ho'okipa, with small waves mostly, a good warm-up for cross-off starboard tack, something I don't get to practise all that often. I will let the pictures do the talking, as there are loads! Here are some shots from the very Hawaiian, amazing opening ceremony, all from talented photographers: Fishbowl diaries, John Carter from the PWA and of course local Jimmie Hepp. Thanks so much for all the pictures!

Everyone was blessed in the circle with a good sprinkling of I guess seawater from a nice palm leaf, very refreshing in the hot sun!

Contemplating my heat plan!!

So into the heats! A nice swell came for the start of the PWA heats, in which they ran the men on the first day, something I was slightly glad of, not because of the size of the waves, but more the flukey wind that day which meant even the best guys were making it look hard to get out! The second day still had some nice logo to mast sets coming through, some even bigger, fantastic conditions for the competition! The wind was still really light and I narrowly escaped the rocks twice during launching, with some good swimming and maybe a little help from the jet ski guys too-my gear savers!!

Once out though, I loved it!

So in summary, heat 1 in the single was against Maria Andres, Iballa Moreno and Jessica Crisp. I played it safe, perhaps too much so, getting some nice waves but nothing too radical and perhaps only one bigger set wave, making sure I didn't end up on the inside with a set coming. I didn't pass through this heat unfortunately, with Jessica and Iballa going through. In the double, I had Daida, Sarah Quita Offringa and local ripper Ingrid Larouche. I made a mistake on my first wave costing me a lot of time swimming, then got a few waves afterwards but I think I panicked with the time left and didn't wait long enough to get back up wind and catch a good set wave! I also realised only yesterday that my last wave was outside the heat time, so didn't count at all-I definitely need a heat timer watch rather than a stopwatch!! Anyway, it was all a learning curve and there were so many talented girls here ripping and spending a lot of tme at Ho'okipa that I didn't really expect to do that well. I am privileged that I entered, was able to sail with only 3 other girls on the water and have learnt what I need to improve here (powerful top turns especially!). Huge congratulations to Iballa Moreno for winning the single elimination proving she is a master of both tacks! The double is yet to finish so we will see if she can hold onto the win against local Fiona Wylde!

The men here were amazing to watch and such an inspiration. The single final with Thomas, Victor, Marcillo and Morgan was unbelievable! The double final is yet to come! It was also great to meet all the AWT and PWA girls here which hadn't made it to Europe. There are a lot of talented windsurf girls, Junko and Sarah Hauser to name a couple, so it was great to meet them and share a tea party with them organised by the one and only Sam Bittner! Thanks!

In between windsurfing, we have been seeing the amazing scenery, waterfalls and re-visiting where Stef and I got engaged back in March, Haleakala volcano! LOVE MAUI!

Lastly, here are a few shots from the competition in Tiree from Richard Whitton, another talented photographer! Thank you!

So the competition is over for me and I can enjoy my last week here. For the lucky few left in, the double may finish tomorrow so check out pwaworldtour.com to see the live heats, it will be epic!

About Me

I started windsurfing when I was 16 on family watersports holidays once a year. I got properly hooked on my gap year in the British Army in 2005, competing and training in Egypt, Holland and the UK. During this year I saved some money for my own kit and in 2006 started studying aerospace engineering at Southampton University, joining the windsurf club. Sailing around the South coast with lots of friends provided lots of competition, and competing all around the country against other Universities in the Student Windsurf Association events gave me an appetite for competing. For the last couple of years at University I competed in the UK wave circuit, travelling to Wales, Ireland and Scotland. In 2010 after University I secured a job with a big engineering firm, Babcock, but managed to get a deferred entry and sailed in Brazil, Maui and the Canaries, competing in my first PWA event in Gran Canaria. Now I live and work in Plymouth in the UK and sail and surf as much as possible around my job.